Assange Fears Assassination In U.S. Prison

London — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange believes he could withstand solitary confinement in a U.S. prison if the American government manages to extradite him, but he fears he would likely be killed “Jack Ruby-style” if held with others inside the U.S.

Assange told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in an interview at the English mansion where he’s under house arrest that the final determination as to whether he can be sent from the U.K. to Sweden or the United States would be made by British Prime Minister David Cameron, but that believed it would be “politically impossible” for Cameron to okay the move.

“Legally the U.K. has the right to not extradite for political crimes,” Assange told the Guardian. “Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the U.K. government as to whether to apply to that exception.”

The U.S. government has not filed any charges against Assange, but Attorney General Eric Holder has said “there’s a predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here and we are in the process of investigating those crimes.”

It’s been suggested, not least by Assange himself, that the U.S. government is trying to find a way to name the WikiLeaks founder as a co-conspirator in a case against the Army private suspected of providing the classified U.S. documents to WikiLeaks.